No funds to track offenders off parole

california State wrestles with how to pay for monitoring required by Jessica's Law

Don Thompson, Associated Press

Published 4:00 am, Friday, December 21, 2007

- An advisory panel created by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considered Thursday how to fix the sex-offender law passed last year because it fails to say who is responsible for tracking their whereabouts once they complete parole.

That means hundreds of offenders in California are not being monitored by global positioning systems, despite the law's requirement for lifetime tracking.

The initiative, known as Jessica's Law, was approved by 70 percent of voters in 2006. It stiffens penalties for sex offenders, prohibits released offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park and requires that they wear satellite tracking devices for the rest of their lives.

But the law doesn't specify whether the state, counties or local police departments should have jurisdiction over offenders once they are off parole. It also does not include money to pay for lifetime GPS monitoring and has no penalty for ex-parolees who simply remove the ankle bracelets.

"The simple answer is the statute doesn't say who is responsible for this," said Jerry Powers, chief probation officer in Stanislaus County.

State corrections Secretary James Tilton told the board in October that his department was removing GPS devices from 500 ex-convicts who had completed parole, despite the lifetime monitoring requirement. About 160 more former parolees have been freed from monitoring since then.

Tilton asked the board for advice about which agency should have the responsibility. In a draft response, the panel said there is no answer in the law.

Representatives of county sheriffs and local police departments said they do not have enough money or sufficient staff to take over the monitoring program.

The corrections department estimates it could cost about $7 per day to monitor each offender with a minimal GPS monitoring system. The state's more-extensive GPS system costs about $33 per offender per day, but that includes the cost of the parole agents.

"We don't know what it's going to cost, and the conservative estimates are hundreds of millions of dollars" as more offenders complete parole, said Nancy O'Malley, chief assistant district attorney in Alameda County.

State Sen. George Runner, who co-authored Jessica's Law, said he intended that local governments have responsibility for monitoring while the state picks up the cost.

"The voters said they want it done," Runner said in an interview after addressing the board. "We believe the state should step up and pay for it."

Runner, R-Lancaster (Los Angeles County), is backing an anti-gang initiative for the November 2008 ballot that includes $15 million annually to fund local governments' GPS tracking of sex offenders and gang members.

Runner said he also is considering legislation that would make it a crime for a former parolee to remove a GPS unit. The state attorney general's office has said the lifetime GPS requirement is unenforceable because Jessica's Law does not include a criminal penalty for refusing to wear the devices.